


Into the Dark

by Sliceofmooncake (Aesoteric)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:13:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5141054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoteric/pseuds/Sliceofmooncake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern AU drabble what-if.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Most people with schizophrenia are not violent. I have no proof whatsoever that Cole as we know him is schizophrenic, but the Angel of Mercy idea fits him perfectly. I am not in any way poking fun or making light of people with psychiatric or emotional problems.

Varric flinched as an alarm blared in the background. God, those things were awful. Were they supposed to be some sort of auditory paralytic? Not a bad idea, actually, you could probably take a lot of people down with just noise--No. Not writing now. The door opposite him opened and his little brother shuffled in, cuffed and flanked by two guards. Shit, he looked awful. Purple circles under his eyes, thin like he hadn’t seen food in weeks, and if the haystack on his head was any indication it’d been a least a week since he washed his hair. Varric tried to smile encouragingly at him and picked up the phone on his side of the glass. Cole sat heavily in the plastic chair, weaving a moment before fumbling for the receiver, holding it to his ear with locked wrists.

“Hey, kid.”

“Hello, Varric.” Cole ducked his head and didn’t make eye contact, his gaze landing somewhere on the surface of the metal table on his side.

“Cole, what happened? The police were saying this crazy shit on the ride over--”

“They say I’m a murderer.”

“What?”

“At the hospital. They’re saying that’s what I did.”

“Did somebody die?”

“Someone’s always dying over there.” Nobby fingers tapped the receiver, tic tic tic. “They’re saying I murdered twenty people. I didn’t.”

“Of course not!” _Cole, six years old and in love with the rabbits in the petting zoo. Cole at twelve winning a highschool poetry competition and being too shy to accept his award._ “Look, we need to get you a lawyer, not one of those state-appointed dipshits.”

“I didn’t murder them. I helped.”

Oh no. _Cole at fifteen with his arms wrapped around his head, begging the voices to leave him alone, Varric trying to coax him out from under the table._ Varric gripped the phone until his knuckles turned white. It had taken two hours to get him to come out and nearly four years to find a drug cocktail that he could tolerate.

“What exactly did you do?”

“I helped! They asked me to. They couldn’t do it themselves, so I did it for them.”

“Cole, did they ask you out loud?”

Cole said nothing, his eyes skittering away like spiders.

“When did you stop taking your meds? Why did you stop taking them?” 

“It’s something new, it made me fuzzy and tired and I couldn’t study. I just wanted to be awake. There was a test coming.”

“You know that you get confused when you don’t take your meds. Why didn’t you just call Dr. Feinman and get him to prescribe something else?”

“I tried, but I couldn’t get an appointment for another month. I only needed to be clear a few days.”

“We had a deal, remember? You said you would tell me if nursing school got too tough.”

“It’s not too tough!” The guards stirred by the door and Cole lowered his voice again. “It’s not, I can do it. It’s good making people better, staying after the doctors leave. I just needed…” He lowered the receiver to swipe at his nose. “I heard them, in the ICU. The ones who weren’t ever going to get better, I checked their charts. Their families thought they were asleep but I could hear them crying, they never stopped crying.” Under his bangs, Cole’s eyes were wide and staring at something that Varric couldn’t see. “They cried and they begged but no one heard them except me. They didn’t want machines or medicine anymore. I didn’t want to, I know that’s not what hospitals are for, but they wouldn’t stop until I said ‘yes’.”

“Those voices aren’t real, remember? This is like when you thought Rhys was going to leave you.”

“Rhys did leave.”

“He left because you kept accusing him that he was planning to disappear on you.”

“So I was right.”

“You can’t read minds, Cole.”

“If I can hear them and I’m right what’s the difference?”

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Varric banged a closed fist against his forehead.

“He’d talk to you if you reached out to him. He’s not dead, he just moved in with his girlfriend.  
They’re only four blocks away from where you live.”

Cole shook his head slowly, playing with the notched telephone cord.

“Look, you need to start taking the pills again. I’ll call Dr. Feinman, tell him what happened and he can get you something new, but just hang in there for now.”

“No.” Cole shifted in his seat and for a moment he looked Varric straight on. “If I take the pills I’ll be normal and they can kill me. They can’t kill me if I’m crazy.”

“This isn’t an episode of “Law and Order”! They might be able to find a way to force you to take them and you’ll stand trial anyway. Please, kid.” Varric pressed a hand to the glass between them. “If you go to prison you have a chance of getting out, if they lock you up in a hospital it could be forever. Is that what you want?”

“No, but...even if they let me out, I’ll never be able to finish school. No one will hire me. I’m too dangerous.” He ducked his head so far that his chin brushed the collar of his jumpsuit. “It’s all gone anyway.”

“It doesn’t have to be!” The klaxon of the alarm drowned Varric out entirely and he groaned in frustration. The guards moved forward and Cole hunched his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, I have to go now. They’re going to put me in a special section people call the White Spire. It sounds pretty. Come visit?” He dropped the receiver on the table and stood up, maneuvering awkwardly around the chair as the guards turned him around to face the door.

“Cole…” Varric let the receiver fall from his ear and it made an ugly clunking sound on the metal table. He watched his brother disappear into the institutional gray. “You almost made it, you were so close kid, so close…” When his eyes brimmed he did nothing to stop them and sat with his head in his hands until he was escorted out.


End file.
